Assessing the Benefits & Costs of Environmental Policies that Improve Water Quality:
A research training opportunity is currently available at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Policy (OP)/National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE), located at EPA Headquarters in Washington, DC.
The participant will be involved with NCEE economists on a research project that will improve methodologies to assess the benefits and costs of environmental policies that improve water quality. This project will have two components. The first component involves assessing the validity and reliability of studies that estimate social benefits of improving outdoor water quality. The participant will engage in research efforts to review literature of all relevant studies, evaluate the results of published validity and reliability tests, and conduct additional retrospective evaluation tests on results, making use of raw survey data where available. The second component is an evaluation of affordability metrics for costs of drinking water that are passed on to customers. The participant will engage in research efforts to review literature on proposed affordability metrics (including those for similar services, such as electricity), apply these metrics to existing market data and evaluate their performance. This research project will provide the participant the opportunity to be involved with large, administrative data sets. The participant will also have the opportunity to participate in additional research projects that are mutually beneficial.
The mentor for this opportunity is Chris Moore ([email protected]).
This program, administered by ORAU through its contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to manage the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), was established through an interagency agreement between DOE and EPA. The initial appointment is for one year, but may be renewed upon recommendation of EPA contingent on the availability of funds. The participant will receive a monthly stipend commensurate with educational level and experience. No funding will be made available to cover travel costs for interviews, relocation costs, costs of tuition/school fees, or a participant's health insurance. Proof of health insurance is required for participation in this program. The appointment is full-time at EPA in the Washington, DC, area. Participants do not become employees of EPA, DOE or the program administrator, and there are no employment-related benefits.
Qualifications
The qualified candidate should have received a bachelor's or master's degree (preferred) in one of the relevant fields. Degree must have been received within five years of the appointment start date.
Preferred skills:
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- Experience using analytic software (e.g., STATA, R or Matlab)
- Strong quantitative skills
- Understanding of benefit-cost or economic impact analyses
I wish my benefit-cost analysis students from last fall would stop by so that I could say "I told you so."
